Hello Mr. India!

Hello Mr. India! I am
Migrant Worker! You have named me so.

I belong to the vast
army of lakhs of those workers who have no option but to look for a living as
migrant workers outside our home states.

You are well aware we
are not Ambani’s children, nor Adani’s. We don’t belong to the happy-go-lucky
gang of the siblings of the Bollywood stars. Our parents do not parade
themselves on catwalk advertisements to glamorise and sell a pen or a bottle of
Horlicks and thereby pocket lakhs as fees. Nor are our parents capable of
making a safe exit as guided missiles from the country after looting banks with
the connivance of the levers of power. We are not that connected!

We dug the
foundations of your stylishly luxurious iconic Antilla-like homes or posh malls
and business towers and raised them up sky high. For ad’s sake, some of us were glamorised by
you as ‘home beauticians’ because of our painting work!

You capitalised on
our hard work and we never heard of the inauguration of those monuments even as
our temporary makeshift huts rubbed shoulders with them in the same
vicinity.

You are in your own
world. And, in this coronavirus pandemic period, you have become more withdrawn
into the inner sanctum of your private life after throwing us out in the
streets. We have become like sugarcane residue after you sucked the juice out
of our lives.

We were given ‘get
out’ marching orders with a midnight knock and you downed the shutters. We saw
you clapping from the balconies, the reason we were ignorant of. We walked
miles and miles, hungry and thirsty. We had tiny tots on our shoulders and
knapsacks on our backs. Our children, walking barefoot for miles limped and
bled. You looked the other way. On occasions you were entertained by the khaki
glad and lathi-wielding gang who engaged us into a frog leap game on the hot
tarmac of the national highways.

You provided no
transport to help us reach home, while you had your sons and daughters brought safely
home in air conditioned buses from neighbouring states.

You insensitively questioned
our wisdom in sleeping on the railway track after 16 of us were crushed and
splintered by your speeding and unannounced train. The railway track was the
only clean strip they saw for a little rest after walking miles and miles. They
knew the railways had announced the non-running of the trains. You never cared
to fulfil your duty of announcing the resumption of the trains. The levers of
power are with you and you are sure you will not be penalised for murder.

Nor will you be taken
to task for the murder of the dozens of migrant workers who stopped breathing
while travelling home. You will say it was their fault to travel home. You are
very clever Saheb, because clever answers are up your sleeves in Charlie
Chaplin style. We saw even your media lackeys skilfully turning their camera on
us and they made mincemeat of their clips and scraps to please their Big
Brother.

This India! I see
mushrooming of huge buildings, shopping complexes, high rise mansions, air-conditioned
saloons or skyline over-bridges. I hear workers are being recruited by agents
and middlemen for working on Prime Minister Modi’s dream plan, New Delhi’s
Central Vista Project, even as coronavirus pandemic is gyrating with death dance.
So, there is no lack of wealth. Our nation is rich enough to write off lakhs of
crores from wilful defaulters. But we poor and neglected workers wallow
maggot-like in misery!

Was it our mistake
when your lackeys announced resumption of trains and we assembled at railways
stations just to be thrashed by the lathi-happy police? Even as we are on our
way back home, we are stopped by contractors’ middlemen saying we are needed to
remain back; otherwise the contractors and engineers will lose their job or development
projects will come to a halt. What an
irony! In order that they may not lose their job, they want to play on our
lives. In order to run the wheels of their industry they need our energy even
as you, Mr. India, are making better labour laws in favour of the capital
owner. Development for whom? The class
mentality and political connivance are seen through. (In the moralistic story:
The Emperor’s New Clothes, by Hans Christian Anderson, it is an innocent child
who points out that the Emperor is in procession with no clothes on. While everyone
realises it, but afraid to admit it, the truth is revealed by a child. And,
even as the Emperor realises it then, he has to finish the procession and
shamelessly moves on!)

Mr. India, you do not
understand the agony of our aged parents, wives and children who are at home
anxiously waiting to see us home. You do not want us to reach home or even die
at home peacefully in the presence of our near and dear ones.

We may be illiterate.
Our huts may be built with bamboos and mud walls. But, even in poverty, there
is mental piece. My boss back in Gujarat had a gun under his pillow. He never
slept peacefully. We are not like that, Saheb!

We are poor. Not
because of our choice. Even as you are educated, you still console us saying it
is our fate to be poor. After seeing all that amassed wealth in cities and even
chaiwallas and tongawallas turning billionaires, I just cannot say it is fate
that keeps us voiceless and miserable. May be, we rural folks are too simple.
We never think of using knives and pistols or tools of power game. We never
think of becoming truant capitalists in connivance with the politically
connected.

Our kabaddi game is
totally different from that of you city folks. We do it for fun and
entertainment in the presence of all village folks. You have your hideout to
play it. And, you say it is fate that keeps some in the grip of poverty while
others like you thrive. Our lands are appropriated by big industrialists who
enjoy political favour and displace lakhs of people and dump them into the migrant
working class. Is it our fault, Boss, like sleeping on railway tracks? The
tribal areas are rich with natural and mineral resources. That is where your
agents grabbed and lacerated our lands with quarries and mines and threw us
out. With our suppressed voice we suffer exploitation as mute victims. You call
it development!

Mr. India, our sweat
and blood have made it possible for you to live in clean homes, posh palaces
and enjoy mirth and music. We clean your latrines and stables. We empty your
drains and vomit. We cook your food. We drive your cars. We dust your tables.
We lay brick by brick to provide you with comfort villas and resorts. Our women,
with children perched in their side slings and carrying precariously balanced bricks,
will not provoke any empathetic feelings in you. Because, you want your pound
of flesh in Shylock style!

Your henchmen were
there to extort us migrant workers who were waiting for trains. When the ticket
rate was only about 700 or so from Gujarat, we were asked to pay Rs. 3000/- per
ticket to Mr. X. When he did not supply tickets, workers were thrashed for
demanding tickets or ticket money. It is a different matter he was arrested. People
with clout and enjoying favour know how to get off the hook.

Know that we have our
fundamental right to live a decent life. If we are unemployed, the state has
the duty to honour our right. We are forced into migrant labour due to poverty
or lack of work in our home state. Or, because our farmlands do not get
irrigated for a second crop. Or, because we are not trained to develop our
skills, we cannot engage in entrepreneurship or use our resources. We do not
belong to the upper class society where our children are educated to become
engineers, executives or apex court judges!

We are tired of
hearing ‘Sab ka Sath, Sab ka Vikas.’ A beautiful slogan, but sickening because
it has lost its sheen. We migrant workers live as nonentities, Saheb, while you
narrate many a success story about this Mahan Bharat to please the ears of
investors and admirers abroad. Mera Bharat Mahan!